


A Hand Reaching Out

by tonytonesphoneroo5000



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Gen, Low Chaos Corvo Attano, Rescue Missions, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 18:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19431529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonytonesphoneroo5000/pseuds/tonytonesphoneroo5000
Summary: Callista’s mother had the same story as many other mothers of bastards-a rich man, a nobleman, making promises to a servant girl he never meant to keep. Jery leaving the household in disgrace with a swollen belly, her family disowning her.





	A Hand Reaching Out

**Author's Note:**

> basically-what if callista was related to the boyles? and also i hated the part in dishonored where corvo leaves lady boyle with that creepy ass dude, so i rewrote it.

Callista’s mother had the same story as many other mothers of bastards-a rich man, a nobleman, making promises to a servant girl he never meant to keep. Jery leaving the household in disgrace with a swollen belly, her family disowning her.

Callista would’ve grown up on the streets if it wasn’t for her uncle, who took them in and raised Callista as mostly his own. Given her enough of an education for Callista to tutor privileged children.

Her mother was left to the side, sad and wispy, pining after a nobleman who forgot about her as soon as his cock was dry. But her mother remembered. Made a pathetic little memento of the Boyle crest, and watched the fireworks over the Boyle mansion from the upstairs window. 

Callista grew up knowing she was a bastard, knowing she had three sisters who lived in luxury just streets away. After her mother died of the Plague, it was just Callista and Geoff. Callista had known that Havelock owed Geoff for saving his life many years ago. 

When everything began to go downhill, she had fled to him, to the safety of his Loyalists and the Hound Pits. She had watched, and waited, and stayed quiet. Callista has always known her place-in the background, away from the grasping hands of noblemen and their wive’s jealousy. She will not repeat her mother’s mistakes. 

* * *

Callista’s not sure what she’s expecting of Lord Corvo-everyone gossiped about Empress Jessamine’s foreign bodyguard, the likely father of her child, a man who rarely spoke but moved like water with a sword in his hand. 

She doesn’t know what to do with this man who stares out from the sunken craters of his face with hollow eyes, and practices shooting in the yard, making shots that have fear flickering across even Havelock’s face. She is quiet around him, but she’s quiet around most people.

He comes to them with shadows dark as bruises under his eyes, with all the fingernails on his left hand torn out and scars across his back. Callista is impressed he’s even standing, his hands loose at his sides. His eyes burn-she’s uncomfortably aware it’s something close to madness that’s keeping him awake. She can see that he was handsome, six months and maybe forty pounds ago, and will be again with proper care. She is not gifted as a nurse. She greets him and leaves him in Havelock’s capable hands. 

* * *

Corvo leaves soon after, barely recovered, wearing a mask that had sent shudders down Callista’s spine the first time she saw it. After weeks in Piero’s workshop, it no longer holds such dread. Corvo has not spoken to her yet, has not spoken to anyone as far as she’s aware. She wonders if he truly can’t speak, if his time in Coldridge has robbed him of it. Surely they didn’t cut out his tongue…

She has to summon up courage to wait for Corvo when he’s about to step onto Samuel’s boat, wringing her hands. She feels something like shame as she begs for her uncle’s life-it’s been months since she last saw him, when the Empress had died and Geoff insisted on staying loyal to the Regent when everything about the situation reeked of treason. 

Callista had fled then, before any more of Geoff’s guard friends could come sniffing around, being vulgar, making comments when her uncle couldn’t hear. They can have anything they want now that the Lord Regent’s harsher regime has spread over the city. It’s better for Callista to hide here, where she’s anonymous. 

Callista can’t tell if Corvo understands anything she says, through the dark eyes of the mask. She has no idea if he cares at all. 

Corvo returns from the mission with no blood on his hands, with his sword spotless. He keeps clenching his left hand, rubbing the back of it. He steps off the boat and heads inside, pausing briefly before her with his face turned away. “Your uncle is safe,” he says in the distinctive accent of a Karnakan. It may be the first time he has spoken in months. 

Callista clasps her hands to her chest, and sighs with relief. Her only family, the only family that has mattered. She never met her mother’s family-her father’s family she has seen only from a distance, the three Boyle sisters seen from the cracks of doors at parties her noble clients held. Geoff is the only one who mattered. 

* * *

Callista’s half expecting Lady Emily to be another pampered, snivelling child that parades around with her nose in the air. Instead, she gets a child who is unmistakably Corvo’s, heavy featured with little of Jessamine’s delicate beauty but much of Corvo’s unusual looks. She is bright and confident, sweet-she made Callista a picture of them together days after they met. 

Sometimes, she looks out over the sea, and Callista knows she’s no longer a child. She looks up at Corvo with worshipful eyes, and he looks down at her wistfully, possibly seeing more of Jessamine in her than the rest of them do. 

One afternoon, wandering the halls looking for Emily, Callista doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she walks quietly, and can’t help but hear Emily’s excited, piping voice and Corvo’s husky whisper. “It doesn’t hurt, little moon. It never did.” 

Callista peeks around the corner to see Corvo crouched before Emily, Emily peering over the back of his left hand as if there’s something there. “It’s so strange,” Emily murmurs.

Corvo examines her face hungrily, then grabs the back of her head and kisses her once, roughly, on the forehead. He has rarely left her side since she got back, always lurking somewhere. Callista backs away before she’s discovered. 

* * *

Callista begins hearing talk of the Boyle family just before Corvo goes to retrieve Sokolov. She is not privy to the Loyalist’s private plans-they see her as a servant, if a smart one.

Good enough to ogle when they think she’s not looking. Not clever enough to participate in their plans, even as Corvo twists every one of them, his touch across Dunwall surprisingly gentle. No guards killed, no target killed but ruined, brought low. He even manages to convince Sokolov to talk without torture. 

But Callista can see the cruelty behind what he does. She has seen that there are things that are worse than death. Still, she has to admire his talents.

None of them seem to notice when Callista lingers as they talk after dinner. She hears the Boyle sisters crop up again and again, and feels a surprising pang of fear. They are family she has never met, and most likely they wouldn’t want to, but…

Corvo leaves late at night for the latest of their ostentatious parties, and Callista watches him go with uncomfortable fear coiling around her heart. Not for him, not after the first time. There’s something about Corvo that makes him immune to being worried about. 

She has seen him recover from injuries that should have killed normal men-she saw him fall off the top of the pub one night, land on his back. It should have snapped his spine. It would have been comical, if the height wasn’t so great, the smack of his body against stone so loud. Corvo had lain there for a moment before getting up as if he had only tripped on a curb. 

Callista has told no one. Callista keeps many secrets. 

* * *

Corvo comes back from the Boyle’s party without any blood on his hands, as has become commonplace. It would perhaps have been better if he did. Callista is horrified when she hears of what he’s done, what he left her sister to face. Callista doesn’t trust men. She never has. She especially doesn’t trust a man in a mask who stole her unconscious sister away.

Callista waits until Corvo has left the general celebrations to face him. He has the mask off, a new cut slowly healing where his mouth was split. He’s filled out in the time since he came here, but there’s still a haunted look in his eyes.

Callista has to restrain herself from slapping him. Geoff taught her some self-defense, having seen what happens to vulnerable young women, but Callista is nowhere near Corvo’s skill. 

“You left her? You left my...a woman? With that man?” Callista has heard the stories about Lord Brisby, about maids leaving his household with big bellies and tears, whispers of even noblewomen not being safe from his grasping hands. For Corvo to have left her with him is not to be thought of. “You will go back, and retrieve her,” she says, aware she’s using the same voice she uses with Emily when she won’t do sums. To her surprise, it works.

Corvo nods once and walks away, waving Samuel to follow him back to the boat. They depart in silence. 

* * *

Callista has read Emily a final story and put her to bed by the time Corvo returns. Callista is half asleep herself, drifting off over the window that looks out on the river. She lifts her head from her arms at the sound of quiet waves lapping against wood. A small rowboat is kissing up to the riverbank, three shapes inside. 

Callista slips from the tower and down the stairs to where Samuel is escorting a slim, straight-backed woman towards the pub. Corvo has already disappeared off to wherever it is that he broods alone, or finds his strange weapons. 

For the first time in her entire life, Callista comes face to face with one of her sisters. It’s Waverly-Callista knows enough about the Boyle sisters to recognize her from the red she’s wearing. Callista sees something of herself in the nose, the disapproving shape of the mouth. Waverly, however, is a beauty.

They eye each other for a moment. Samuel discretely takes himself elsewhere. “Little sister,” Waverly says finally.

Callista starts. “You...you…” 

“You thought I didn’t know?” Waverly’s mouth twists up in a sardonic smile. “I know every one of my father’s bastards.”

“How many?” Callista has to ask, has to know how many siblings she has out there. Outsider...what if she already knows one of them? 

“There are three.” Callista relaxes. Now that Waverly is here, safe, she’s not sure what to do with her. There is no way she’ll be allowed to walk freely, not with what she knows. Callista isn’t willing to kill her. Havelock will know what to do, he always does.

There’s a bruise on Waverly’s high, elegant cheekbone. “What did he do?” Callista asks. 

“Nothing that hasn’t been done before.” Callista wasn’t expecting a kiss and a tearful hug. She’s not sure what she was expecting, actually. Perhaps not this calm, courtier politeness. Waverly’s eyes are green, not brown like Callista’s. She has her hands folded behind her back, calm, but now that she’s not so nervous, Callista can see that Waverly is shivering.

“Come inside. There’s food. And tea.” The rest of the men and servants are asleep, and somehow, Callista is sure that Corvo is watching. She’ll be safe enough. Waverly hesitates, looking around the dark, empty yard. “Come...sister,” Callista presses, and Waverly does finally follow.

She is just a dark shape once they leave the lighted courtyard, and her voice softens as she asks polite questions about the area. She presses Callista’s hand once before drawing away. “And I thank you, little sister. For saving me.” With that, they enter the heat and safety of the pub, side by side. 

* * *

Later, after the uproar, after Havelock’s yelling and Pendleton’s greasy politeness and Callista insisting, pleading, for her life, once Waverly has been locked away near Sokolov, things are calm. Havelock may never speak to her again. But Callista has never needed or wanted his kindness beyond what he owes her uncle.

Emily is curious about the lady she vaguely recognizes from parties who now languishes in a cell, looking elegant despite the distressed state of her clothing. No one else expresses much interest. Callista visits her every day, has come to discover that Waverly is selfish, and prone to melancholy, and too clever for her own good.

Corvo won’t speak to her, no doubt because she assisted in Jessamine’s assassination, but Callista has always been pragmatic. She leaves him a strange rune she finds near the riverbank, and a letter expressing her thanks. For now, for the life of a sister, that will have to be enough.


End file.
